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Any Questions #361: "Things Named After Places"

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel are back for the last quiz of July.Last week's challenge
Start with a four-letter word related to horse racing. Insert one letter and to make a five-letter word related to horse racing. What are the words?
Answer: The words are TACK and TRACK.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: THINGS NAMED AFTER PLACES
On-air questions: On July 27, 1929, the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War – more commonly known as the Geneva Convention – was signed. Taking effect in June of 1931, the Convention defines who is a prisoner of war, how they are to be treated, and what can and cannot be done to a prisoner upon their capture. To commemorate the signing of the Geneva Convention, this week each correct answer is a thing with a place in their name.

1. They are native to the Mediterranean, but their popularity and cultivation in northern Europe – and, specifically, Belgium – likely gave what small vegetables that resemble miniature cabbages their name?
2. Reportedly invented by a lieutenant in the Civil War, what foldable office supply takes its name from the use of fibers from a banana plant native to the Phillippines in its manufacture?
3. What iconic brand of sporting equipment has its origins in a meeting between a baseball player named Pete Browning and the son of a woodworker named J.F. Hillerich that resulted in Browning breaking out of a hitting slump with his custom-manufactured equipment?
4. What drink, made of vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice, is advised to be served in its traditional copper mug only if that mug is lined with another metal (such as stainless steel), which would prevent the copper from dissolving into the acidic drink?
5. The title of the 2003 book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is a nod to the debate over the use (or non-use) of what punctuation mark, named for its inclusion in the style guide of a university press in England?

Extra credit
1. By what more familiar name do we know the compound, essentially a version of magnesium sulfate and used in bath products, that is named for a town in England where the compound was first extracted from a spring?
2. What building material, used to make concrete, mortar, stucco, and other mixtures, is not named for either a city in Maine or in Oregon, but rather for an island in the English Channel?

This week's challenge
Start with the phrase DOVER SOLE. Change one letter to a T and you can spell the last name of a person associated with New York's Hudson Valley. What is the name?

ANSWERS
On-air questions

1. Brussels sprouts
2. Manila envelope
3. Louisville Slugger
4. Moscow Mule
5. Oxford comma

Extra credit
1. Epsom salts
2. Portland cement

 

A lifelong resident of the Capital Region, Ian joined WAMC in late 2008 and became news director in 2013. He began working on Morning Edition and has produced The Capitol Connection, Congressional Corner, and several other WAMC programs. Ian can also be heard as the host of the WAMC News Podcast and on The Roundtable and various newscasts. Ian holds a BA in English and journalism and an MA in English, both from the University at Albany, where he has taught journalism since 2013.
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